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What is File System Implementation?

Introduction

A file system provides with a mechanism for online storage as well as access to file contents including data and programs. The Secondary storage system or the disk holds the file system. It is designed for storing a large amount of data permanently and efficiently.

File System Structure

The File system containing data is stored in the secondary storage provided by the disks. Characteristics that enable disks to be a convenient medium for storage of multiple files are:

· A disk can be rewritten in many places. A block from the disk can be read or modified or it can be written back at the same place.

· The disk can have access to any given block of information or data it contains thus enabling sequential or random access to files and switching from one file to another just needs the read-write heads to be moved and the disk will rotate automatically in the new direction.

File System Implementation

Several in-memory and on-disk structures and mechanisms are used in order to implement a file system. The structures may vary depending on the operating system and the file system, though there are some general principles that apply to all cases.

The file system may have information relating to booting of an operating system, the total number of blocks, the number and locations of the free blocks, the individual files and the directory structure.

A boot control block per volume contains information needed by the system to boot an operating system from that volume. In UFS, this is called the boot block and in NTFS file system, this is called the partition boot sector.

A volume control block contains partition details like the number of blocks in the partition, the size of the blocks, free block count and free block pointers. This is called a Superblock in UFS and in NTFS this is stored in the master file table.

To create a new file application programs call the logical file system which knows the format of the directory structures. To create a new file it allocates a new FCB. The system then reads the appropriate directory into memory and updates it with the new file name and FCB and writes it back to the disk.

Partitions and Mounting

The layout of a disk can have many variations that depend on the operating system software. A disk can be divided into several partitions or a volume can span multiple partitions on multiple disks. Partitions can be raw, having no file system or cooked, having a file system. Raw disks are used where no file system is appropriate. Some databases may also use the raw disk space and format the data to suit their individual needs.

Boot information can be stored in a separate partition. This has its own format as during booting there are no file system devices drivers loaded and as a result cannot interpret the file system. Boot information is usually a sequential series of blocks loaded as an image into memory.

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